Saturday, July 11, 2009

2009 WSOP Day 44 - Main Event Day 3: Two Frenchies, One Cup

"Ah, he's one of those hyper-aggressive players who likes to do blow and bang hookers," extolled one of my British colleagues.

"Tell me something I don't already know," I snapped. "You just described every single European pro on the circuit."

* * * * *

For most of the afternoon, I kept a watchful eye on Ludovic Lacay who sat at a table in front of the press box. I only knew him because of Benjo. Lacay was one of the first players to be signed to a sponsorship deal with Winamax, the largest online poker site in France. The law student from Toulouse soon realized that his future was in tournament poker and Lacay never finished his studies. Instead, he spent the last few years traveling the world and playing on the grueling tournament circuit. Lacay was a fixture on the EPT (and the runner-up at the WPT Barcelona Open in 2007) and he lived in Las Vegas the last few summers while he played in the WSOP.

On Day 3 of the Main Event, Lacay often wandered up to the press box to tell Benjo his chip count. Since I sat next to Benjo, I often heard them chatting about hands. A few times Lacay broke into English because he noticed that I struggled to keep up with their rapid-fire French.

Lacay was a machine and vacuumed up chips. He acquired a fair amount of his stack with 9c-7c in a nasty hand where he snapped of Kings. Out of most of the French pros, Lacay is one of the most adept at building a stack, but on the negative side, much like Norwegian pro Johnny Lodden, Lacay is prone to implosions. Lacay could easily dust off 500K as fast as he accumulated it.

Lacay has a lot of gamble in him, including proposition gambling. He once lost a bet with Brice Cournut. The loser had to play an entire day of a tournament with a tooth brush in their mouth. Lacay lost the bet and did not back down. He played Day 2 of the EPT Hungarian Open in Budapest with a toothbrush. I happened to be there covering the event.

Ludovic Lacay in Budapest during the EPT Hungarian Open

Lacay plays fast and loose. Although he knows how to shift gears, he doesn't do it as often as he should. On Day 3, it didn't matter as he jumped out to the chip lead. Benjo insisted that he would be the first player to pass the 1 million mark. Lacay ran over his table as he closed in on 1 million and if Nick Shulman wasn't moved to his immediate left, Lacay might have finished the day with the overall lead.

Instead of Lacay, another Frenchman ended up becoming the first player to pass 1 million and that was none other than Elky. Born Bertrand Grospellier, Elky spent most of his formative years in Nancy before moving to Korea as a late teenager to pursue a career in video games. After he became a Starcraft rock star in Korea, he turned his focus to poker and quickly picked up on the similarities of the online poker game. The rest is history. He earned almost $6 million playing in tournaments... since January of 2007. He's been rumored to have gone busto a few times but he always bounced back.

Benjo spent a lot of time with Elky which was the crux of his cover story in this month's Bluff Magazine. They both share a flat together in London. The French pro is indeed the real deal and has been running incredibly good over the last year. He parlayed that into the chip lead at the Main Event. Elky has all the skills including the patience and discipline to know when to shift gears. He has an uncanny ability to read his opponents and he always knows which buttons to push.

As Day 3 reached the midnight hour, both Lacay and Elky were on top of the leader board, while the popular Phils (Ivey and Hellmuth) were hounded by the press and ESPN cameras. Lacay operated under the radar for the entire day. Elky spent some time under the bright lights but by now, he's used to the spot light.

At one point, Ivey was moved to Elky's table, but Elky retained his focus as the two managed to avoid each other.

"Ivey is probably the best player in the world," said Elky. "I respect his game very much. I was not going out of my way to get involved with Ivey. There were so many other weaker players left, so I went after them."

Indeed, a tale of two Frenchman. By the time the day ended, Elky was close to 1.4 million while Lacay finished up with 900K.